Every state flag ranked by vexillologists (2026)

Vexillology is the study of flags. In 2001, the North American Vexillological Association (NAVA) asked people to rate 72 US state, Canadian provincial and territorial flags on design quality, and 100 NAVA members and 337 members of the public responded. The results split the country into two camps: a small group of distinctive flags built on clean symbolism, and a large majority stuck with a state seal on a blue rectangle. This guide walks through the NAVA rankings, the five design rules the good flags follow, and the recent wave of redesigns.

The NAVA rankings, top 10 and bottom 10

NAVA scored each flag from 0 to 10. The top scorers share three things: a strong central symbol, no writing, and colors that read from a distance. The bottom scorers share one thing: a state seal on a blue field with the state's name spelled out beneath it.

The table lists the ten best-scoring US states with the NAVA members' published scores and each flag's rank among all 72, so the gaps at 3rd and 7th to 9th belong to Quebec, Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia and the Marshall Islands, and 12th to Nova Scotia.

Rank (of 72)	Flag	Score	Design
1	New Mexico	8.61	Red Zia sun on yellow field
2	Texas	8.13	Lone Star, red/white/blue tricolor
4	Maryland	7.97	Calvert and Crossland heraldic quadrants
5	Alaska	7.96	Big Dipper and North Star, gold on blue
6	Arizona	7.92	Copper star with 13 red and gold rays
10	South Carolina	7.16	Palmetto tree and crescent on indigo
11	Hawaii	7.15	Eight stripes with Union Jack canton
13	California	7.00	Grizzly bear and red star on white, red bottom stripe
14	Tennessee	6.98	Three white stars in a blue disc on red
15	Ohio	6.87	Swallowtail burgee, red and white stripes, blue triangle with stars

The bottom of the list, in reverse order from worst to slightly less bad, was Georgia (2001 version, since replaced), Nebraska, Montana, Kansas, South Dakota, Minnesota (1957 version, since replaced), Kentucky, Wisconsin, Idaho and New Hampshire. Every flag in the bottom 10 used a state seal on a solid blue background. Georgia scored 2.36 because it also crammed five smaller historical flags around the seal, essentially a flag of flags.

The five NAVA design principles

NAVA's booklet "Good Flag, Bad Flag," written by Ted Kaye, lists five rules that guide a strong flag design. The best US state flags follow them; the worst violate them one at a time.

• Keep it simple. A child should be able to draw it from memory. New Mexico's Zia sun and Texas's Lone Star pass. Massachusetts, with a Native American figure holding a bow and a five-pointed star and a Latin motto, fails.
• Use meaningful symbolism. Every element should represent something. Alaska's Big Dipper points to Polaris, symbolizing the northernmost state. The design was drawn by 13-year-old Benny Benson in a 1927 contest.
• Use two or three basic colors. Colorado's flag uses red, white, blue and gold. Ohio's swallow-tailed burgee sticks to red, white and blue. Anything more starts to look like a coat of arms.
• No lettering or seals. If you need to write the state's name on the flag, the design has failed. Yet more than 20 state flags carry a state seal or coat of arms, and many spell out the state's name.
• Be distinctive, or be related. Nordic countries share a cross layout. US states could share the star, but instead 17 of them share a nearly identical blue-field-with-seal pattern.

The 21 seal-on-a-bedsheet flags

Placed side by side, many US state flags look interchangeable. A dark blue rectangle, a full-color state seal centered, and the state's name in an arc beneath. Design critics call these SOBs (Seal On a Bedsheet). The reason so many look alike is historical: in 1861, the US Army required regiments to carry a flag identifying their state. The fastest solution was to sew the state seal onto a blue army standard, and most legislatures never revisited the choice.

The 21 seal flags are Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin; all but Illinois and Massachusetts (white), New Jersey (buff) and Washington (green) put theirs on blue. Iowa's eagle and North Dakota's eagle are not state seals, and Missouri sets its coat of arms on a tricolor rather than a plain field. Oregon is the only US state with a two-sided flag: the seal is on the front, and a beaver, the state animal, is on the back.

Recent state flag redesigns

After decades of NAVA campaigning, three states have redesigned in the 2020s.

• Mississippi (2021): Voters replaced the Confederate battle emblem canton, in use since 1894, with a magnolia surrounded by 20 stars representing Mississippi as the 20th state, plus one gold star for its Native American heritage. The banner reads "In God We Trust."
• Utah (March 2024): A new flag featuring a stylized beehive, the state symbol since 1896, on a blue and red field. The old seal-on-blue design remains in use as the state's historic and government flag.
• Minnesota (May 2024): An eight-pointed North Star on a dark blue asymmetric field with a lighter blue fly. Chosen from 2,600 public submissions after a legislative commission. Replaced the 1957 seal-on-blue flag that ranked 67th of 72 in the NAVA survey.

Illinois ran a state flag commission that picked ten finalist designs in December 2024; in the public vote that followed, keeping the current flag drew the most votes. In Michigan, bills to create a flag commission were introduced in 2023 and 2024 and died in committee. Maine put a return to its 1901 pine tree and blue star flag, a design its legislature referred to the ballot, to a statewide vote in November 2024, and voters rejected it.

Symbolism explained: what the top flags actually mean

• New Mexico: The red Zia sun on yellow honors the Zia Pueblo people. Four rays in four directions represent the four seasons, four times of day, four stages of life, and four sacred directions. Colors are those of the Spanish conquistadors under Isabella of Castile.
• Texas: The Lone Star dates to the Republic of Texas, adopted January 25, 1839. Blue stands for loyalty, white for purity, red for bravery. Texas is one of three states whose current flag predates statehood; Alaska and Hawaii are the others.
• Alaska: Eight gold stars on blue: seven forming the Big Dipper (Ursa Major, symbolizing strength) and one for Polaris, the North Star. Drawn by Benny Benson, a 13-year-old orphan of Aleut and Swedish descent, who won a 1927 territorial contest and a $1,000 scholarship.
• Arizona: Thirteen red and gold rays symbolize the original 13 colonies and the Arizona sunset. The copper star at the center honors the state's copper mining industry. Adopted 1917.
• South Carolina: The palmetto tree honors the 1776 defense of Fort Sullivan, whose palmetto-log walls absorbed British cannonballs. The crescent is not a moon; it depicts the silver gorget worn on the caps of Colonel William Moultrie's Second South Carolina Regiment.
• Maryland: The only US flag based on English heraldry. Black and gold quadrants are the Calvert family arms; red and white quadrants are the Crossland family arms of Lord Baltimore's mother.

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